


In Sheep's Clothing

by iimpavid



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Domestic Fluff, Gen, Kid Fic, Post-Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Single Parents, Slice of Life, suspend your disbelief, the author knows very little about CPS
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-04
Updated: 2017-12-15
Packaged: 2019-01-29 05:32:45
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,029
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12624333
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/iimpavid/pseuds/iimpavid
Summary: Stealing kids from a homeless shelter is easier than it should be in retrospect.





	1. Chapter 1

Stealing kids from a homeless shelter is easier than it should be in retrospect.

It happens like this: one homeless guy with an unfortunately trustworthy gait walks into a shelter looking to get some soup and a good night’s sleep. A barely-teenaged girl with a septum piercing who’s got nothing but piss and vinegar filling up her spirit decides that  _he_  is an acceptable hail mary.

Jude sits herself and her little brother Carlisle ( _Lisle, with an S_ ), down across from him with her elbows on the table, backpack laid out on the bench on her opposite side, taking up as much space as she can. The guy looks at her expectantly. Not surprised or offended or cagey. Just the slightest bit impatient.

“We’re not goin’ back to foster care,” she tells him in an undertone.

“Sucks ‘cause that caseworker lookin’ for you and him at the front office seems to have other ideas.”

Judith nods, somber. Turns to rummage in her backpack-- it’s black canvas, big enough to carry her brother in but too small for living out of-- and pulls out a green plastic make up case. There’s a straight razor in it, various toiletries. Then, a plastic shopping bag of thrift store clothes, stolen that morning. “We are not going back into foster care,” she tells him, more firmly this time.

“Whaddaya expect me to do about it?”

“Shave that dead animal off your face, for starters.”

“That’s no way to respect a man’s beard, kid.”

“I’ll respect your beard when it starts looking respectable, old man.”

“And what’s your master plan after that, huh? That nice lady isn’t gonna let me walk outta here with you two. I’m not exactly foster parent material.”

“Nope, but you’ll look like it. She’s never met Mr. Adam Turner which is why she’s not got a damn clue that we left Portland ‘cause neither one of us is exactly good punching bag material.”

“You’re from Maine?”

“Oregon.”

He nods. It’s the most he’s moved since Judith sat down. There’s something calculating in the faded denim of his eyes and for a moment Judith regrets this life decision-- but it’s too late now. If he’s a freak or a serial killer, well, she’ll just have to claw his eyes right out of his head before it gets too far along. Judith isn’t a violent person but she’s heard stories and she’s been told by everyone who thinks she’s looking for advice on homelessness (it must be something in her face) to go for the eyes first.

“The cops’re gonna be lookin’ for you.”

“Not for long. New York’s a big place and we’re nobody.”

“You given this any thought beyond what you’re gonna do once you get outta sight of this place?”

“Aside from ditching you? Nope.”

“And what am I supposed to get outta this?”

“The joy of knowing you helped rescue a coupla kids from evil incarnate.”

“Mr. Adam Turner’s that bad, huh?”

“Yup.”

He takes the make up case and the plastic shopping bag. Judith doesn’t see him leave.

“ _There you are._  You to scared the daylights outta me.” Their caseworker, an overly optimistic woman named Emma whose glasses frames are bright red, puts a hand on both Judith’s and Carlisle’s shoulders. Judith tenses. Carlisle shrieks. Jerks backward off the  cafeteria table’s bench and falls flat on the floor. Stares up at Judith and Emma, harried.

“Look at what you did,” Jude tells Emma. She pulls Lisle up, dusts him off. “We gotta get you a vest, bro, a bright yellow one that says “don’t touch me” like they have for pitbulls that used to fight.” She says it lovingly.

“I -- I’m sorry, Carlisle,” Emma actually does look contrite. “When I saw you two weren’t in the waiting room I panicked, a little. We need to go now, though...”

Jude has a hard time processing the rest. She holds Lisle’s hand and tries not to look around desperately for her carefully-engineered deus ex hobo as Emma ushers them outside and into the back of her car.

After the hospital (there are always hospitals) comes a group home. A lot of Judith and Carlisle staring at each other trying to work out how to manage a night in separate rooms.

There is no deus ex hobo. The son of a bitch ripped her off.

Jude doesn’t sleep but Lisle sacks out in her lap on the sofa around 3 a.m.-- the house’s nighttime manager is dead asleep in the arm chair-- but the important thing is they’re both downstairs for the frantic knocking that comes on the door at 7 o’clock sharp. Group homes like this one, they know from experience, are supposed to be relatively secret and there’s no way a resident would be freaking out that hard trying to get back in. No one likes group homes that much.

The nighttime case manager has, at some point, peeled herself from the armchair and is drinking from a mug that gives off the smell of burnt coffee. She’s alert the second the knocking starts, phone in hand with the police pre-dialed, but of course, she opens the front door anyway.

“Oh thank  _God_. Thank you. I’ve been trying to call you people all night--”

“Sir, what do you think you’re--”

“Oh, oh I’m so sorry you probably need ID. Here, let me-- My kids. They’re here. NYPD called me last night, I took a redeye, they’ve been missing for weeks my wife is worried sick. Please--”

“Mr.-- Mr. Turner I’m sorry but you can’t just--”

On cue, Jude gasps, “ _Daddy_!” 

And she drags a half-conscious Lisle with her to squeeze around the case manager-- who gets points for nearly succeeding in holding Judith back but Judith is mean-- right into the open arms of their deus ex hobo. He’s not wearing what she gave him. These clothes are even nicer. The right kind of thing that an investment banker looking to score social points by fostering kids would wear. His hair’s clean and pulled into a bun because he may be an investment banker but he’s one of the cool ones, apparently. He doesn’t look much at all like an actual hobo anymore and for a second Jude thinks she’s got the wrong guy.

But he meets them on his knees on the stoop clutching the two of them like a lifeline. “ _Tsigele_!  _Where have you been_?”

The guy’s even crying. It’s a damn shame she can’t afford to pay him for his performance.

More hours and more paperwork and a lot of phone calls prove that "Mr. Turner" checks out. He walks away from the office hand-in-hand with Jude and Lisle and keeps holding their hands only until they’re safely out of sight of anyone even remotely associated with the police and the state. “You two actually do have two plane tickets waiting for you but they’re to New Mexico, not Oregon, if you want ‘em.”

The last 48 hours catch up with Jude all at once. She stares up at him. “What.”

“I dunno if you two actually wanna stick around, big city or no, ‘cause eventually they’re gonna find out that I’m a fraud and I’d rather you not get stuck in that--”

“What the fuck-- no-- back up. How do you have money for plane tickets? Where did you get the clothes?”

“I’m sorry I was late,” he keeps talking like she’s not said anything, “I had to do some research on this guy who’s supposed to be your legal guardian, yanno? Make it look good. And that takes time. But here.” He pulls out a wallet that, judging from the ID in the window, is definitely not his wallet, and holds out its contents to Jude. It’s mostly fifty dollar bills. “There’s a coupla motels you can afford near the airport in Albuquerque.”

She gapes at him. “Are you a drug dealer?”

“No.”

“If you can do all this--” she gestures to him, implying the white collar crime and robbery and whatever else, “why are you homeless?”

“Because  _this_  ain’t somethin’ I do anymore.”

“And you’re doing it now  _because_?”

“I wanted the joy of knowing I helped rescue two kids from evil incarnate.”

“You’re a sucker, you know that?”

“Tell me about it.”

“We ain’t goin’ to New Mexico. It’s too hot down there. No snow.” She takes his stolen money, shoves it in the pocket of her jeans. “You can buy us breakfast, though.”

“Alright, you got it, kid.”

“Stop calling me kid, old man." 


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Some additional slice-of-life sorts of moments with Bucky, Jude, and Lisle.

They end up buying a brownstone. Straight up buying it. Jude doesn’t want to know where James— that’s deus ex hobo’s name, James Barnes— gets his money. Carlisle thinks he’s a secret agent.

Carlisle isn’t far off the mark, really, but it’ll be a while before that comes out into the daylight.

The fridge is full from the second James signs the sale papers-- that’s the first thing they do, go grocery shopping, then clothes shopping, then they pick up a mattress and sleep in the living room in front of the fireplace. It takes another week before the house has enough furniture to be livable. Jude isn’t sure that she’s awake most of the time but she gives suggestions for how to hang pictures and arrange end tables just the same.

But the important thing is James lets them pick the color schemes for their bedrooms and has nothing but soft furniture and matching throw pillows. There is an unholy number of pillows in their house.

James keeps weird hours. James will wake up from nightmares screaming and hide in the bathtub. James acts like Jude doesn’t know about the ridiculous number of guns under the floorboards that he cleans late at night when Carlisle’s asleep. James enrolls them in a prep school--

(“With rich kids? Why?”

“Uniforms are cheaper than new school clothes every year.”

“You’re a super hacker or something can’t you just steal the money?”

“I’m an EMT now and no, I can’t, I have to set a good example for you.”)

\-- makes them breakfast on weekends, makes sure they have lunch packed every single day they leave the house. He cuts the crusts off their sandwiches. Sometimes, the sandwiches are even punched out with cookie cutters into shapes like pumpkins or people or hearts.

James is fucking weird.

One Saturday morning after they’ve been living in Brooklyn a solid two months, after they’ve all had a long night— no one in their fucked up fake family is immune to nightmares— Jude wakes up to James opening the curtains of her room to let the morning sun flood into her perfectly crafted Teen Cave. Beside her Carlisle snuggles deeper into the nest they’ve made with two beds’ worth of bedding. (James is bizarrely unconcerned with Carlisle refusing to sleep alone. Another thing on the list of Strange Shit James Does.)

“Up and at ‘em, kid, we’re goin’ to Temple.”

Groggy, grumpy, and graceless, Jude lobs a pillow at him that falls short by several feet. “Fuckoff, ’sa Saturday morning.”

“Alright, lazybones. We’ll go tonight.”

He leaves the curtains open like he was raised by wolves, the damn animal, and sure as shit that night they go to an actual synagogue.

“I didn’t know you were a Jew,” she tells him, doing her best not to feel out of place.

“There’s a lot that got left outta the books in that history class of yours, huh?” He winks at her.

Cat’s out of the bag on that one; not that it’s hard to mistake her pseudo-dad James for anybody other than the James Barnes in the history book or the James Barnes nee the Winter Soldier on the news two years ago. It’s not like he’s kept it a secret but Jude hasn’t exactly asked about it either. “Yeah, I guess so.”

__

It’s not that Bucky hasn’t noticed that over the course of three months he’s become a parent and settled into a firmly civilian life built on a shit load of truly elaborate and well-crafted forgeries. It surprises him, though, how he takes to it.

Sure, there are enough weapons secreted throughout the brownstone to make a doomsday prepper spontaneously orgasm but that’s not an overt sort of thing. Jude and Lisle dropped themselves into his life and he shed the Winter Soldier like a snake sheds its skin. Parts of the Soldier still crunch under his feet now and again, sticking to his back in flakey patches, but for the most part he’s settled himself into what less-experienced killers would consider a cover identity. The truth is, he’s living a dream that died some seventy-five years prior, one of coming home from the war to start a family.

The house rules are posted on the whiteboard by the front door. Simple reminders like, “Breakfast isn’t optional” and “Homework before Internet” and “Don’t be an asshole to strangers” and “Keep your phone charged” and “It’s okay to order out if James isn’t home for dinner (see fridge)”. (To Jude’s endless annoyance, James doesn’t make a habit of working so late he can’t cook them dinner. The amount of vegetables the man prepares borders on criminal.) A taped-up manila folder of delivery menus holds the central place of honor. Lisle has covered it in space stickers. Beside it, the chore chart is written directly on the door in Sharpie, all evenly-spaced letters looking like typeface— magnets with their names rotate through the list from week to week.

The only article Bucky can remember reading that first week he and the kids were motel-hopping suggested that stability and structure were essential for recovery and he’s done his best to provide. It’s not unlike setting mission parameters.

The kids, though, aren’t his unit of Winter Soldiers. They’re much better-behaved.

Which is saying something about his former unit since Jude decides immediately that _James_ isn’t going to tell her what to do under any circumstances.

Bucky, he’s okay with this. Jude stays out until 3 a.m. doing who-knows-what (after Lisle is tucked in sleeping Bucky follows her, just to be certain she’s not being _too_ stupid), she comes home to Bucky sleeping on the couch looking every inch like he was waiting up for her. He rouses himself just long enough to tell her, blearily, “You’re goin’ to school in the morning”, and stumble down the hall to his bedroom.

She snorts, “Whatever helps you sleep.” Jude turns off her alarm clock.

Bucky drags her out of bed and lets her sleep in the car but walks her to first period where she realizes she’s neither brushed her teeth nor changed out of yesterday’s clothes. When she falls asleep in Algebra she gets detention and when James turns up at 4 p.m. to bring her home from enforced study-hall she discovers that every ounce of chocolate in the house is gone.

“What the fuck is wrong with you?”

“Chocolate has caffeine,” James tells her, looking guileless and contrite, the sadistic fucker, “If you can’t get to sleep until 3 a.m. then clearly you’re getting too much caffeine. Don’t look at me like that, kid— I got rid of all the coffee, too. We’re _both_ suffering here.”

The stomping and the door slamming are enough to make him roll his eyes.

__

It’d be nice if he could say that Lisle is easier but the younger kids are the more teachers want to have conversations with parents instead of treating kids like they’re capable of being responsible for themselves. So Bucky goes to parent-teacher conferences. Sits awkwardly in grade school desks with teachers-- it’s more like squatting for half an hour straight because he’s pretty sure he’d break the cheap pot metal and plastic chair.

The teachers have nothing important or new to say. Lisle doesn’t talk in class or to other kids and isn’t doing his homework. There’re concerns that he’ll need to be held back. A bunch of other crap that Bucky, frankly, doesn’t care about because school is about social skills not learning things of use-- he walks out of the classroom in the middle of Mrs. Gillespie trying to get Lisle and have him sit at the too-short gradeschooler desks with them.

“Mr. Turner, children aren’t usually—”

“With all due respect, Mrs. Gillespie,” his favorite turn of phrase, it fails to specify the amount of respect due, “Lisle’s gonna get a lot more outta talkin’ with you directly than you talkin’ to me like I’m some kinda puppeteer.” Then, he asks Lisle, “Why don’t you talk to anybody, champ?”

Lisle, looking put upon, answers after a full minute during which Bucky has to hold up a hand to silence Mrs. Gillespie’s impatience, “I don’t want to.”

“Why’s that?”

“They’re dumb.”

Bucky nods, “Fair enough. It’s terrible for your cover, though, makes you look suspicious. Why haven’t you been turning in your homework? I know you do it every night.”

Lisle shrugs. Mrs. Gillespie opens her mouth to speak and Bucky holds up a finger to silence her again.

“‘cause I don’t bring it to class.”

“Sounds like a waste of effort doin’ homework and gettin’ it all right not to turn it in.”

Another long stretch of silence.

“Less of a waste than Ryan stealin’ it. At least I’m learnin’ somethin’.”

Bucky nods. “Yeah, I get it. Ryan’s that asshole from three blocks over, right?”

“Mr. Turner, that’s not appropriate language to describe a third grader.”

Bucky blinks at the teacher like he’s just remembered she’s there and informs her dryly, “Which, strangely enough, doesn’t make it less accurate,” before devoting his attention to Lisle once more, “So how’re we gonna keep you from gettin’ robbed so you can actually turn in your homework?”  

Lisle doesn’t start talking in classes but he does develop a knack for fighting dirty that would make a certain scrawny Irish kid from Brooklyn exceptionally proud. Bucky doesn’t explicitly encourage violence but he’ll be damned if his kids don’t know how to throw a punch or that one of the quickest ways to end a brawl is to go for the kidneys.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [Tumblr.](https://papcrmooncardboardsea.tumblr.com/) [Twitter.](https://twitter.com/iimpavid)

**Author's Note:**

> [Come say hey on tumblr y'all.](https://papermoon-cardboardsea.tumblr.com/)


End file.
